The guitar player and singer again was part of the iconic cast in Eric Clapton's Crossroads Guitar Festival this year.

For the first time, the Aug. 13 gathering at New York's Madison Square Garden was broadcast live (in high definition) to 500 movie theaters nationwide.

That still doesn't match the 2006 elevation of Cray's spirit.

"I was on a high for a year and have been super-inspired by the fact they even invited me," said Cray, whose band performed with a bunch of his role models during Clapton's 7-year-old Crossroads Festival inaugural. "Just the opportunity to be there, meet other musicians, start new friendships, see people you haven't seen in a long time. It's really inspiring. It was a big job.

"We backed up all the musicians," including Clapton - the 68-year-old British musician who helped revive American electric blues in the 1960s - Hubert Sumlin, Jimmie Vaughan and B.B. King in 2006.

Being in King's band this year was special for Cray, drummer Les Falconer, keyboard player Jim Pugh and bassist Richard Cousins, who co-founded the group with Cray in 1977 in Eugene, Ore. The Robert Cray Band plays Tuesday at Tracy's Grand Theatre Center for the Arts.

"It's great," Cray, who's been at all of Clapton's "Crossroads," said of supporting the 88-year-old Riley B. King. "He's the guy. What's really fun is how comfortable he makes you feel. Everybody there (is) picked for their ability to hang with other people."

Cray certainly can. He's a modest guy, considering his 36-year, 20-album career as a respected guitarist who's won five Grammy Awards (15 nominations), is in the Guitar Hall of Fame and helped make blues more accessible to a wider audience with his eclectic style.

"I'm not gonna comment on my role," Cray, 60, said from a tour stop in Santa Ynez. "That's for somebody else to do. It's the root for American music. A really good jazz musician will tell you that you can't play jazz until you can play blues. We're influenced by what goes on around us."

Cray who lives in Los Angeles, was impacted - musically and practically - by his upbringing in an Army family.

He got started in his native Columbus, Ga., where his dad, Henry, was a quartermaster at Fort Benning.

After 11 months, it was off to Fort Lewis, Wash.; then Seaside (Monterey County) and Fort Ord; Munich; Fort Lewis again; Newport News, Va., where he attended high school, and "back to Washington state."

"It continues to this day," said Cray, who plays 135 shows a year. "It was good practice. I know how to pack a bag."

Cray began playing piano in Germany and "got a guitar when the Beatles came out like everybody else. As a kid, the whole thing was about having fun. One band led to another."

He even convinced his late father to form a "little" gospel quartet: "I guess I inspired him."

His dad and mom Maggie had a "great record collection," said Cray, who has three sisters. "R&B. Jazz. Gospel. Everything"

That youthful mobility also expanded Cray's musical palette and tastes. Back then, songs by Frank Sinatra, the Rolling Stones, Janis Joplin and the Seeds would be played back-to-back-to-back-to-back on the same radio stations.

"There was a lot of regional music," Cray said. "A lot of local music was played on AM radio."

He didn't want to leave his first teenage band in Newport News, "but we moved. I pretty much just kept playing and trickled down the coast to Southern California and L.A."

That was after he met Cousins, also a fellow Army-family traveler, during a 1974 jam session in Tacoma, Wash. Three years later, they started another band in Eugene.

"It was just like now," Cray said. "Trying to get another club date. Eventually we wound up" at the San Francisco Blues Festival, supporting Texas bluesman Albert Collins. Cray also was influenced by Albert King and Muddy Waters.

Cray and Cousins recorded an album of their hybrid style - not hard-core blues - in 1978. It wasn't released until 1980 ("Oh, record company stuff") as "Who's Been Talkin'."

The emergence of MTV helped gain more attention for "Bad Influence" (1983), "False Accusations" (1985) and "Strong Persuader" (1986). It included "Smokin' Gun," which got to No. 2 on the U.S. pop-singles chart, Cray's biggest high.

MTV "gave us a tremendous boost," he said. "A huge boost to our fan base, which I still feel fantastic about."

Cray, who's played with most of the main men in blues-rock, never has attained major mainstream acceptance. However, his last 11 CDs have advanced to the U.S. blues top seven, including 2007's No. 1 "Live Across the Pond." He's begun work on a successor to "Nothin' But Love" (2012).

"The most important thing is continuing what we do," Cray said. "For us, it's playing the kind of music we do. It's good. I consider us lucky to be where we are and to have had the careers we've had. It's good. We'll go out there and bust a butt and keep doing it."

Not necessarily via HD theater broadcasts, though: "I don't think so. It's live. The live thing still is the best thing."